The Washington Capitals saved some of their best hockey of the season for a big game against the red-hot Toronto Maple Leafs. Washington went into Scotiabank Arena and beat up on the Leafs at five-on-five, leading to a 3-1 regulation win.
This game was really fun to watch despite the lack of goals. Toronto is one of the supposed contenders in the league and the Caps smacked them in the mouth without Alex Ovechkin. Love that.
#NHL GameScore Impact Card for Washington Capitals on 2024-12-06:#ALLCAPS pic.twitter.com/vs6SLosOQk
— HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards) December 7, 2024
- The Capitals won the majority of the battles all game and that shows in the five-on-five numbers from the win. After 60 minutes, Washington was up 63-39 in shot attempts, 26-16 in scoring chances, 11-6 in high-danger chances, and 2.68-1.32 in expected goals. Their third period was especially brilliant, not allowing a single five-on-five Leafs high-danger chance and recording five of their own.
- Toronto has owned the Capitals in recent years, so this win felt really nice. Washington was 1-7-2 in their last 10 regular season games against the Leafs coming into Friday night. They had not won a road game against Toronto since October 29, 2019. Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom combined for seven points (2g, 5a) in that 4-3 overtime win. Braden Holtby also made 28 stops.
- Connor McMichael scored the game-winning goal against his hometown team. McMichael’s 15th goal of the season was his 12th at five-on-five, tying him for first in the NHL with Buffalo’s Tage Thompson and Carolina’s Jack Roslovic. McMichael is on pace to score 47 goals this year.
- The Capitals were absolutely phenomenal with Rasmus Sandin and Matt Roy on the ice at five-on-five. During the two’s minutes, the team posted positive differentials in shot attempts (+7), scoring chances (+8), and high-danger chances (+5). They were also on the ice for both of Washington’s five-on-five goals.
- Pierre-Luc Dubois received a lot of the Auston Matthews matchup from Spencer Carbery and he won it handily. During those minutes the Capitals out-attempted Toronto 9-7, out-chanced them 6-3, and outscored them 1-0. Dubois was my personal player of the game. He recorded the primary assist on McMichael’s goal and was just all over the puck the entire night.
- Charlie Lindgren was on top of his game and made some key saves in the second period to keep the game tied. Per MoneyPuck, he saved 1.4 more goals than expected which was the difference late in the third.
Numbers thanks to Hockey-Reference, NaturalStatTrick, and HockeyStatCards.
